Craft Product Review: Stencils by The Crafter’s Workshop

February 23, 2011

Confession: I’m not a stencil girl. I have a box of stencils and templates on the top shelf of my closet that I pretty much never use. Stencils seem…well… old fashioned? Like cheating? I guess I have bad flashbacks of 80’s country decor stuck in my head.

After viewing the new line of stencils by The Crafter’s Workshop, all those previous notions have vanished! They are on-trend, GORGEOUS, and given my new proclivities for mixed media oh-so-versatile. In only a few hours of playing with them, my mind is buzzing with new ideas and I can’t wait to try out even more techniques.

The folks tending the booth at CHA Winter were generous enough to give both me and Jennifer Clark (her take on these stencils will be up tomorrow) stencils in both the 6X6 and the 12X12 sizes to experiment with. Let me start byÂ explaining that the stencil material is exactly what I remember it being- a thin, flexible plastic. Since Jen used hers with sprays and inks, I though I’d go a slightly different route with mine.

Not your Momma's stencils!

I started by using a smaller stencil with some Twinkling H20’s. I followed my first instinct and sprayed the back of the stencil with basting (repositionable) spray to help it stick down to the watercolor paper I was using:

Wash created with Twinkling H20's & applied with my waterbrush.

Finished piece (on watercolor paper.)

The branches lifted a little, but I loved the result. Very artsy!Â I only wish they had this stencil in a negative….

Next, I decided to try a stencil with my much-loved Shiva (oil) Painstiks. I tried to use the stick directly through the stencil, but really, it was too thick for that. I resorted to using a stencil brush and applying the paint that way. I love the way it turned out. It will be a great piece “background” for a fabric postcard!

Paintstiks leave no oily residue and leave the fabric super-soft!

Encouraged by my results, I prepared another piece of fabric (again, spray baste helps) and used deColourant– it’s a discharge medium and it will effectively bleach away the color from fabric.

The heat is what discharges the color.

(By the way… I used my heat-gun to discharge my fabric…you don’t even need an iron. But I’ll have a full review on that later!)

And this one was just misted with some Randiant Rains on a piece of patterned scrapbook paper:

Make sure you use the Repositionable Adhesive, or else it will bleed underneath.

….and I haven’t even gotten around to chalking…yet….but well, this gives you an idea just how flexible these stencils are for the intrepid crafter. And the designs are so current and fresh, they look up-to-date on mixed media, scrapbook layouts, art quilts, and wearables.

Now for the price…get this… these suckers are cheap! And by that, I mean really inexpensive. At the Interweave store, the 6X6 ones are $3.99 USD, and the 12X12 ones are $6.50. I’ve paid more than that for a marker or a waterbrush!Â That makes these stencils…

Now, my crafty colleague Christine over at www.Scraptime.ca did a video showing all of the new designs AND a few techniques she tried. Give it a watch:

I haven’t used any stencils though I’ve recently gotten a few that I’d like to try out. I really like the results of the bluebirds and alphabet ones- probably partially because I love those colors too. 🙂

With that tip about the re-positionable adhesive, you’ve motivated me to go dig out my stencils and work on some altered book pages. 🙂 That first tree stencil is to DIE for! How amazingly cool that you got to go to CHA – JEALOUS!!!

I love their stencils, too and have a dozen or more. I’ve written them to tell them how much I love them, and also how much MORE I would love and buy them if they had the “presticky” backing on them that is renewable and means I don’t have to stress my lungs with spraying repositional adhesive.

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Hi! I’m Jenny, the co-host of Hands On Crafts for Kids on PBS and the Head Dummy behind CraftTestDummies.com where you’ll find craft product reviews, tutorials, and craft industry news.

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CraftTestDummies is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to Amazon.com.

Jenny Barnett Rohrs is Head Dummy and Pied Piper behind CTD, which focuses on reviews, tutorials, and craft industry news. Jenny has appeared on HSN, Scrapbook Soup PBS series, and is currently the co-host of Hands On Crafts for Kids on PBS.

Copyrighted Content Permission All images and tutorials on this blog are copyrighted material. Please contact me if you would like to borrow any media (photos, video or audio files), tutorials, or ideas from this blog. 99% of the time I would be happy to allow you to use one photo with appropriate credit and link back to CraftTestDummies.com (preferably to the same post it was borrowed from.)